widdiful
[fr. Sc. widdy, a rope for hanging]
Scot. (n) one who deserves hanging, a gallows-bird; a scamp, rascal
(a) fit for a halter, deserving to be hanged; scampish, rascally

Well, there are rabbits in our community garden, so I was thinking of setting snares, being a practical Maine raised boy. Wrist rockets aren't allowed in the town, god forbid I use a 22 rifle with shorts which is what I would do if I was in Maine or the country. Vermin I say, VERMIN! So I went from "snare" to "hang" to "widdiful".

Also, how often do we have a words source be Scottish, so does that imply it might have a Celtic root?

eberntson: Goggle as I will, I get the origin of widdiful as Middle English or Scottish. Scottish is not a Celtic language. Celtic Scots is usually called Erse. Scottish is a parallel development with English. The two have pretty much merged now.

My ten-year-old buddies and I never knew what to call those handy weapons. We called them sling shots knowing full well that David did not kill Goliath with one of them. This is the first time I ever heard them called wrist rockets. In addition to the hand held variety we made catapult like weapons that were mounted on platforms. Two boys, one on each side, pulled the “inner tube”, and the ammunition was a four or five inch diameter stone. We also made "guns" out of pipes that we dropped firecrackers and marbles into and then aimed quickly before the explosion. Except for one "gun", which backfired and bruised my shoulder badly, we never killed or injured a human. The rabbits had little to fear from us either.

Slava, that is an interesting questions, could it imply that a hangman’s noose rope rotation runs counterclockwise in the knot? I have done an initial search and found nothing that excludes or includes that notion. In some readings about hangmen & executioners as a group/guild I know they had many special practices to make their job more solemn. And some just liked their job.

My father taught me how to make a slingshot out of a sapling and inner-tube rubber. The wrist rocket was just the "cool" thing the richer kids had, plus I suspected my father thought they were dangerous and didn't want to buy me one. I think I will get one the next time I'm at tackle shop 'cause the community garden has a varmit problem this summer. I'll decrease the surplus population a little. If I was 10 years old I'd have the time to get'em ALL. It's to gentrified around here to hire a boy to be a boy and do the job for me. These city folks sure don't know what they are missing.

"Juvembers" definitely puts the Good Doctor from Down South. It points directly to his home state of North Carolina. I have not been in North Carolina enough to get down all its local words, and I didn't know this word. I think I will adopt it here in Texas.